On December 27th, 1982, at
8.05pm,
Frank Muir introduced an hour of sitcom shorts specially made for the
Christmas
season. The sixty-minute programme was entitled "The Funny Side Of
Christmas",
and featured five- to ten- minute, and mostly one- or two- scene,
situations of some of the BBC's most popular programmes of the time -
all
of which are now defined as 'classic television'. As Frank says in his
introduction: "We have helped the writers of this programme, of sorts.
'Take one aspect of Christmas', we said, 'and show how it affects the
characters
in your situation comedy'". Frank Muir linked the segments
together,
and the first to be shown was "The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin".
Other shows were Butterflies, Only Fools & Horses, Last Of The
Summer
Wine, Sorry!, Three Of A Kind, Alas Smith & Jones, Open All Hours
and
Les Dawson's 'Sissy and Ada'.

All cast were as per
the
series. The additional character of the tramp was played by Michael
Ripper.

Note: It is worth
remembering
that it had been three years since Series Three had finished on BBC1,
and
David Nobbs seems to have made this sketch into a kind of roll-call of
everybody's catchphrases, sometimes at the expense of the storyline.
Nevertheless,
the idea is a good one, and as with the three series, the strong
characters,
revolving around Reggie as 'ringmaster', make the whole work well.
Although
not a part of the series, there are similarities in the sketch to
Series
One, Episode Three, where Reggie has asked Joan to come round to have
an
affair, but all the family turn up uninvited, and Reggie's frustration
boils over.

Scene 1: It is Christmas
morning. Reggie and Elizabeth are relaxing in their living room in
casual
clothes, looking forward to a nice, relaxing Christmas Day. The
doorbell
rings, and Elizabeth answers it. It is Joan. She has come to see if he
is alright, as he seemed strained at the office. Reggie insists that he
is OK. Next, C.J. calls round for the same reason, as does David
Harris-Jones,
Tony Webster and Doc Morrissey. Jimmy calls round for some food, as
usual.
After issuing everyone with drinks, Reggie remembers it is the time of
giving and hands out a bottle of spirits to all his uninvited guests.
He
then gives everyone one of his own presents from underneath his
Christmas
tree, including giving back Doc Morrissey the same present he gave to
Reggie,
which C.J. gave to Doc the Christmas before. With the front door open,
a scruffily-dressed tramp enters, and asks if the master of the house
could
spare anything for him, too.

Scene 2: Reggie is
stoking
the fire, after all the guests have gone, and Reggie has finished his
giving
of presents. As he looks around the room, he realises something has
gone
wrong with his feeling of goodwill - his living room is empty of
everything:
presents, tree, food, drinks, even furniture and carpets.Related Links: Script
- Video
Clip